In the information society the current reality is an increasing
dependence on technological resources to create order and to find
meaning in a gigantic quantity of online data. Searching has surpassed
browsing and surfing as main activity on the web. This development
turned the search engine into our most significant point of reference.
Its focus on efficiency and expansion of services tends to veil the
nature of the technology as well as underlying (corporate) ideologies.

In this query driven society, The Society of the Query conference
seeks to analyze what impact our reliance on resources to manage
knowledge on the Internet has on our culture. The theory of a semantic
web lurking around the corner revives the ‘human vs. artificial
intelligence’-debate. The centralizing web demands to critically
question the distribution of power, the diversity and accessibility of
web content, while promising alternatives for the dominant paradigm
surface in peer-to-peer and open source initiatives. Finally, the
question arises what role politics and education, after having
invested substantially in media intelligence, can play in the creation
of an informed users’ group.

For two days, the Society of the Query conference aims to zoom in on
some of the essential themes surrounding web search by critical
analysis and the contextualization of developments in interface design
and the organization of knowledge. The Institute of Network Cultures
seeks to achieve this specifically by uniting researchers, theorists,
activists, artists and professionals working in this area and by
creating a platform for not only realized projects and recent
research, but also for open questions and predictions.

Conference Themes
Society of the Query
Digital Civil Rights and Media Literacy
Alternative Search (1)
Art and the Engine
Googlization of Everyday Life
Alternative Search (2)
Society of the Query

Because the web lacks editorial monitoring, we have become more
dependent on technological resources when trying to find meaningful
content within the vast amount of data on the web. Traditional methods
to decide what information is valuable and useful are absent. In
recent years, people have become increasingly dissatisfied by Google’s
PageRank-algorithm, which is based of the popularity of a web page.
Also, new semantic layers have been added to the principal
architecture of the web. This conference session will focus on
‘searching’ on the level of the software and will discuss the notion
of the organization of knowledge within the theoretical framework of
the humanities and computer science.

Questions to be discussed in this session include: What is the history
of the organization of knowledge? Which ideologies make up the
foundations for the concept of ‘ontology’? And, what role will human
expertise play in the era of ‘machine understanding’?

Moderator: Geert Lovink
Speakers:

* Yann Moulier Boutang (F), editor of Multitude’s special issue on
Google (May 2009).
* Matteo Pasquinelli (NL), Author of Animal Spirits (2008) and
Google’s PageRank: Diagram of the Cognitive Capitalism and Rentier of
the Common Intellect” (2009).
* Teresa Numerico (IT), (PhD in History of Science) is a
researcher in Philosophy of Science at the University of Salerno,
where she teaches New Media.
* David Gugerli (CH), author of “Suchmaschinen – Die Welt als
Datenbank” (2009).

Digital Civil Rights and Media Literacy

In 2005, John Batelle characterized Google as a ‘database of intents’:
a valuable archive of individual and collective wishes. As the number
of services offered by search engines is expanding, large amounts of
personal information are gathered, stored and used for commercial
purposes. The current technological climate seems to be one in which
the user is virtually unaware of who or what is behind the web
applications they use on a daily basis.

Questions to be discussed in this session include: How does the
intermediary function of search engines threaten digital civil rights
such as the right to privacy and freedom of expression? What role can
politics play in protecting these rights? How can the way search
engines are designed aid to protecting our autonomy? How will the
legal framework concerning search engines be shaped? And, after
substantial investments in media intelligence, how are these matters
raised on a national and European level?

* Joris van Hoboken (NL), doctoral candidate at the Institute for
Information Law at the University of Amsterdam. His research focuses
on digital civil rights and the legal framework concerning search
engines.
* Ippolita Collective (IT), Italian collective that recently
published “Luci e Ombre di Google” (2007), available in English as
“The Dark Side of Google”.

Alternative Search (1)

In response to a growing interest in alternative methods to search the
web, this session will focus on three ‘genres’ of alternatives on the
level of the user, the software and the network – represented and
compared by researchers. The first genre that is attended to will
include the upcoming ‘general purpose’-search engine, a search engine
designed specifically with large audiences and competition with Google
in mind. The second genre will focus on search methods that disregard
the ‘engine’ as dominant paradigm. How promising are, for example,
peer- to-peer and open source technologies with regards to the current
search conditions and which alternatives for commercial and
centralizing methods have already emerged? The third and final genre
consists of specialized search engines, mostly targeting specific
content. What can we learn, for instance, from search methods within
certain web spheres, such as the blogosphere, or the flourishing area
of mobile search? And, how is the field of visual search developing,
looking beyond the tag as systematizing principle?

Moderator: Eric Sieverts
Speakers:

* Matthew Fuller (UK), Goldsmiths College, will discuss
alternative search engines and interventions within the field of
artists.
* Cees Snoek/Marcel Worring (NL), University of Amsterdam, focuses
on visual search engines, competitions between universities in the US
and Amsterdam, assignment for the search engine: find the red hat in
the movie as fast as possible.
* Ingmar Weber (NL/FR), post doctorate researcher in information
retrieval at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in
Switzerland. His doctoral research focused on efficient data
structures and applications for an interactive search engine called
‘CompleteSearch’.

Art and the Engine

Even during the web’s early stages, artists used this platform to
produce and distribute a extensive diversity of media such as
animation, programming, video, audio and games. While in the last
decennium we have witnessed a shift from the ‘directory’ towards the
algorithm, it is the art database that has been refining the directory
model for years.

What influence does Google’s omnipresence have over the production and
distribution of web based art? How does art criticism manifest itself
in the era of Google? And, how the can online artistic experience be
preserved and made easily findable? While examining these issues, the
Institute of Network Cultures will invite representatives of some of
the largest art databases, such as the Rhizome ArtBase and the Whitney
ArtPort, to discuss the latest developments in the classification,
annotation and visualization of web based art.

Concentrating on the latest developments within the field of graphic
design, art and the architecture of information, additionally this
session will address potential outcomes of search result design.

Questions to be discussed in this session include: How can we achieve
more advanced forms of interface design and search result design? What
role do graphic and visual representations play in the conveyance of
digital information? Do alternatives exist that can challenge the
‘ranked list’ as dominant type of search result presentation? And, how
would the interface be able to stimulate new and progressive ways for
the user to search, find and analyze data?

Moderator: Sabine Niederer
Speakers:

* Lev Manovich (USA), UCSD professor, media theorist and initiator
of Software Studies.
* Daniel van der Velden (NL), Metahaven Design Research is a
design and research agency in Amsterdam, that researches the potential
power of ‘bridging nodes’, the peripheral nodes in a network, and is
implementing this theory into a prototype for a new kind of search
engine.
* Christopher Bruno (FR), artist. Produces polymorphic art
inspired by network phenomena and globalization regarding image and
language.
* Allessandro Ludovico (IT), thoughts on the aftermath of the
Google Will Eat Itself project.

Googlization of Everyday Life

Questions to be discussed in this session include: In what way does
the hegemony of some of the bigger search engines influence the flow
of information and the diversity and accessibility of web content? How
does the current division of power influence the administration of
informational sources. And, what are the results of the Google
BookSearch agreement?

Introduction and moderation by Andrew Keen
Speakers:

* Siva Vaidhyanathan (US), culture historian and Associate
Professor in Media Studies and Law at the University of Virginia.
Authored publications include “The Anarchist in the Library” (2004)
and the forthcoming “The Googlization of Everything” (early 2010).
* Stefan Weber (Vienna) on the dangers of plagiarism and Google’s
role in the decline of education.
* Benjamin Edelman (US), How Google and Its Partners Inflate
Measured Conversion Rates and Increase Advertisers’ Costs.

Flarf Performance
Alternative Search (2)

In response to a growing interest in alternative methods to search the
web, this session will focus on three ‘genres’ of alternatives on the
level of the user, the software and the network – represented and
compared by researchers. The first genre that is attended to will
include the upcoming ‘general purpose’-search engine, a search engine
designed specifically with large audiences and competition with Google
in mind. The second genre will focus on search methods that disregard
the ‘engine’ as dominant paradigm. How promising are, for example,
peer- to-peer and open source technologies with regards to the current
search conditions and which alternatives for commercial and
centralizing methods have already emerged? The third and final genre
consists of specialized search engines, mostly targeting specific
content. What can we learn, for instance, from search methods within
certain web spheres, such as the blogosphere, or the flourishing area
of mobile search? And, how is the field of visual search developing,
looking beyond the tag as systematizing principle?

Moderator: Richard Rogers
Speakers:

* Florian Cramer (Rotterdam), head of the Master of Arts in Media
Design program at the Piet Zwart Institute/ Willem de Kooning Academy
in Rotterdam. Authored publications include the essay “Animals that
Belong to the Emperor: Failing Universal Classification Schemes from
Aristotle to the Semantic Web” (2007).
* Europeana Thought Lab (The Hague), Semantic Search Engine for
Europeana
* Stephen Pemberton (Amsterdam), chairman of the XHTML2 Working
Group at W3C and researcher at the Center for Mathematics and Computer
Science in Amsterdam.

Project Showcase

This segment of the conference will consist of the exhibition of
specific projects addressing the theme of the search engine, and will
be divided into two parts. During the conference, a display of
computers and screens will be available on which the latest generation
of search engines is installed. The Institute of Network Cultures
seeks to give visitors the opportunity to discover search engines such
as Wolfram Alpha, Quaero, Theseus and Autonomy. This will provide them
with hands-on experience of the range of search methods discussed in
the conference sessions. Furthermore, the Institute of Network
Cultures plans to organize a concluding evening program to do justice
to the diversity of artistic and activist projects that examine the
role of the search engine in contemporary society. The works presented
in the evening program will vary from browser extensions, alternative
search engines and net art projects to videos and VJ performances. It
is aspired that artists and developers will be present during this
showcase to discuss and elaborate on their work with the audience.